Seattle – 3 visits to the Pacific Northwest

I came through Seattle three times on my great Melboune to London trek. The first time was just a transit stop, my ship docked at the end of my Japan-Alaska cruise and I continued straight on to Vancouver and Vancouver Island in Canada. An Amtrak train brought me back to Seattle, arriving early morning, and I had a day in Seattle before flying to Montana. Then I returned to Seattle for another day before hopping on another Amtrak train heading south to San Francisco.

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▲ The Gehry-curves of the Museum of Pop Culture

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On my first Seattle stop I totally failed to find somewhere to leave my bag at the King St Station and then I couldn’t find a taxi either. Eventually, toting my bag with me, I got an Uber and headed straight to my first destination, the Paul-Allen-financed Frank-Gehry-designed (think Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain) Museum of Pop Culture or MoPOP. It started life as a Jimi Hendrix museum, then became the Experience Music Project and then adopted its current name.

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◄ A tower of guitars in the Museum of Pop Culture

▲ Jimi Hendrix in the Museum of Pop Culture

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It’s a bit like Bilbao in another way, more interesting from the outside than inside. In fact take out Seattle boys Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain and there’s not much else that interests me. Not a great investment for my US$28.50 entry although (thank you MoPOP) they take my bag and stow it away with no problem at all. There are no storage lockers or anything, they just put it in the office!

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◄ Jimi Hendrix statue on the corner of Broadway and Pine – the museum isn’t the only place Seattle recognizes Hendrix

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◄ Space Needle – conveniently located right beside the music museum is Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. Built for the 1962 World Fair in Seattle it was ‘once the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River.’ Not any more, there are taller buildings even in Seattle. I spend another US$33.60 and ride up to the top for the fine views in every direction.

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Museum of Pop Culture from the Space Needle – the fine views from the top include directly down to the roof of the music museum. ▼

◄ View from Colombia Skyview including, in the distance, the Space Needle

For US$29.53, slightly cheaper than the Space Needle, I also ride the lift to the lookout level of the Colombia Skyview where there is indeed quite a view from the 73rd floor, 300 ft higher than the Space Needle. From this viewpoint I can look across Seattle and out to Mt Rainier still considered an active volcano and at 4392metres (14,410feet) it’s 616metres higher than Japan’s Mt Fuji. I can also look down at the nearby Smith Tower.

▲ The Smith Tower – dating from 1914 the Smith Tower is extravagantly detailed and at 42 stories it was pretty high for the time. Unfortunately there was some private function happening so I couldn’t ride to the top for a third Seattle lookout. Seattle heights: Colombia Tower 284metres (933feet), Space Needle 184metres (605feet), Smith Tower 148metres (485feet)

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◄ Hammering Man

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It’s the iconic image of the wonderful Seattle Art Museum (SAM), but in fact there are other examples of Jonathan Borofsky’s sculpture all over the world. Seattle’s example is only mid-size, the Frankfurt, Germany and Seoul, South Korea versions are much larger at over 20metres (70feet).

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◄ Ikat from Sumba in Indonesia

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I spend some time in the art museum where there’s some terrific African art (a great Mercedes Benz Ghana coffin) and a series by Jacob Lawrence tracing the story of Haiti’s Touissant L’Ouverture, but the big attraction for me is a terrific ikat exhibition, most of it drawn from the collection of David and Marita Paly. Wow, I keep thinking. I’ve always thought of ikat exclusively as Indonesian and indeed there are some superb pieces from Bali and I’m particularly taken by one from Sumba. But ikat from Japan, Nigeria, Uzbekistan? Who knew. The Paly collection is another reminder that personally I’ve never really collected anything.

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After my high altitude lookout excursions I also explore Seattle at ground level. Of course I looked in at the Public Market Center by the waterfront and I walk to Pioneer Square, where there’s not much happening although I chance upon the colourful Seattle citizenM Hotel, I’ll be staying in the San Francisco branch at my next US West Coast stop.

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At my Alaska stops (Kodiak, Sitka and Ketchikan) and in Livingston, Montana it was remarkable how there might have been lots of town centre businesses (tourist tchotchkes in Ketchikan, art galleries in Livingston), but no pharmacies or supermarkets. For those you had to get in a car and drive to the shopping centres and large outlets away from the town centres. Today, en route to Walgreens for a little shopping – shaving cream, a new razor, aspirin – the 3rd to 4th St block of Pike St is Seattle’s walking dead quarter, people flaked out, sprawled out, overdosed out, all of them looking bloody awful.